Enter the ShadowLands
by Rhianna L'Ebhra
Summary: A one-shot written for my New Year's challenge. Van Helsing discovers that not everything is as it seems when an old enemy comes back to haunt him...


**Written for the New Year's One-Shot Challenge—write a fanfic with the theme of New Year's and post it on said day.  
Note: I don't own Van Helsing—Hollywood does.**

Gabriel Van Helsing was still a name that could instill fear into the hearts of any villain, regardless of the fact that the man had been retired from evil-slaying for the better part of a quarter-century. The story of his defeat of the Count Vladislaus Dracula—and the inherent death of Anna Valerious thereafter—still floated round taverns of good standing and alleys of darker business. No one underestimated the power of this knight in tainted armor, but many questioned behind dead-bolted and chained doors whether his strength was begotten by good or ill. Of these who pondered the inevitable question, only five knew the answer—and only one had been there for both the infection and the cure.

_A bat-formed Count Dracula fell to the floor, hissing and gurgling as the werewolf who had moments ago ripped out its stone heart turned on the woman who held a vial-encased cure._

_Mere feet above, another woman stood on the rafters, her part in the deathly adventure ended before it had ever begun. Neither human nor werewolf ears heard her whispered words, but neither needed to. They would know of them in another twenty-six years._

"_Come back to life, my count. The vampire world needs you as of yet."_

Laughs echoed through the tavern, another woman having fallen victim to Quentin's unclean practical jokes. "After all, lass, you're only a country one, ain't you?" A soft hiss was the only answer to his question as he slapped her genially on the behind. The woman stood up to walk out, only to have Quentin loop an arm around her waist and drag her into his lap. "Methinks you'd make a good bedfellow, my dear—just in time for New Year's, too. What do you say?"

"I say...get your filthy paws off me before I kill you," was her softly-growled answer. Laughs again erupted as Quentin slapped his thigh and attempted to drag the woman to his room at the back of the tavern. She slapped him, drawing three thin lines of blood from his cheek. A collective shocked silence descended over the tavern as the burly man stood in shock, the blood on his cheek matching the color of his hair—and almost matching his face.

"You little—" He didn't get the chance to finish his sentence as the tavern door blew open to let in the winds—and a slim, dark figure whose shadow-hair was darker than the storm-tossed night outside.

"Keep your silence, mortal," the mysterious man growled, his bottomless dark eyes burning holes even in the minds of those who couldn't see his face. The disdain, so evident in the woman's voice, was heard and multiplied tenfold in his. He turned to the woman and motioned with his head. "Come. It is time for the old fool to meet his end."

Van Helsing stood up from his armchair, the palpable darkness in the air alerting him to the fact that something was wrong. "Carl?" he called out, reaching for the shotgun at his waist. "Is that you?" The only answer to his question was the keen howling of the wind as it whipped the snow around his mansion—a house too large for one old man to live in alone, he mused, as he flicked off the safety and raised the gun to his shoulder, finger on the trigger.

Laughs echoed around the shadows, grown indeterminably larger in the few nanoseconds it had taken him to blink. "Who's there?" he barked, whirling around to face whatever was behind him. Shapeless shadows slowly took form, morphing into two very humanoid—although certainly not _human_—shapes. One was disturbingly familiar; the other, even more shocking in its anonymity...

"Dracula? You're supposed to be—dead!" Van Helsing snapped, fear cracking his voice and weakening his gun arm so that the gun clattered to the carpeted floor. "I killed you, twenty-six years ago..."

A malevolent laugh again echoed through the mansion, shadows shrinking from that acid laugh. "Did you really think that you could kill me? I am immortal, Van Helsing, as you are not."

"What did you expect, twenty-six years ago, when your precious Anna died?" the dark-haired woman beside the count asked. "It is the preferred method of payment of the night creatures—an eye for an eye, a life for a life; and someone to recognize the exchange." A glowing, arcane symbol slowly came to life on her upper arm, writing and etching encircling her slender arm. "You killed, I witnessed, and the count's life was exchanged for Anna's." Van Helsing sputtered, rage rendering him momentarily mute.

"Y-you mean to tell me that Anna died so that this...this _monster_ could come back to undying life?!" he finally yelled, picking up his gun and pointing it between the two. "What kind of sick joke _is_ this?" The count merely nodded to the vampire woman, who drew out a sword and bowed to the monster slayer.

"If you will—a fight to the death," she answered, leveling the broadsword at him. Van Helsing barely had time to draw his own sword before the female vampire was upon him, her face a mask of fury. Dracula's laughter rang out once more, and Gabriel felt for the first time the truth of his enemy's words. He was _not_ immortal...

"No..." he wheezed, as the woman's feline agility allowed her to sneak past his defenses and land a hard, rib-shattering blow on his chest. "This isn't happening..." Pain and disbelief dulled his movements, and as the vampire moved in for the kill, Van Helsing wept. "I'm sorry, Anna...I couldn't avenge your death..."

"Keep your apologies to yourself, old man," the woman hissed. "Soon you'll be able to tell her yourself!" Her black hair whipped around her face as she drove her blade in for the kill, hitting him squarely in the heart. The last thing he saw was the snow whirling around the mansion as he fell slowly to the floor...

"My compliments, Alannah," the count smiled, his teeth glinting wickedly in the moonlight shining through the swirling snowflakes. "And just in time, too..." Outside, an owl hooted in the beginning of the New Year. Count Vladislaus Dracula held open the door for his fourth bride, and both swiftly morphed into bats and flew off into the night sky.

The new year had begun, and it was the year of terror.

* * *

**Happy New Year's, all! I don't know **_**how**_** I got such a weird story out of this happy time, but...I blame the snow falling in Dallas, Texas. It acts like crack on poor California people like me who've never seen snow before. Anyway, happy New Year's and have bundles of joy and merriment!**


End file.
